Loyalty, Liberty and Love
by Salmagundi
Summary: In honor of Veterans Day. "He's always known he loved his country, he'd just never thought it would be literal." OC/America. Sort of.


Loyalty, Liberty and Love

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Notes: This was written for the Hetalia Kink Meme. The prompt was "America talking to Veterans". It's probably a bit different than what the OP intended, but not in a bad way, I hope. There's also implied m/m.

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~ 01 - I Love You Free ~

William is six when he falls in love with America.

It's Independence Day, and up until this fateful year, Will has been scared of the fireworks. They're noisy things, like a storm but constant. The days leading up to the Fourth of July were full of them – people eager to celebrate the holiday a bit early, or a bit drunk – nights full of thunder. He'd pulled up his blankets over his head and quivered, wondering why anyone would ever enjoy such a thing.

Their team is playing that day – nothing official, just a friendly competition – and while William may hate fireworks, he loves baseball. He leans forward in his seat, practically bouncing with eagerness. Every hit is celebrated with a happy howl, whether it be his own team or the rivals. It's an afternoon of hot dogs and home runs, and it isn't until the game draws to a close that he remembers what day it is and why it should be terrifying. The boy curls up on himself on the wooden bleacher, his fancy new mitt held tightly against his chest. He doesn't look up as someone sinks down beside him, not until he feels a gentle pat on his head.

He looks up at the man with wide eyes, briefly surprised by the strong feeling that he knows this stranger. He's never seen him before but he's dressed in the uniform of their opposing team, only partially hidden by the funny jacket he wears over it. The man's face is open and friendly, his eyes behind his glasses were as bright and blue as the summer sky. Messy blonde hair falls across his forehead, sticking to his skin a little in the humid air and he reaches up with one hand to brush it out of the way. "Hey, sport." His voice has a hint of laughter in it and he seems pleased with himself.

It takes Will a moment to realize that this was the batter on the other team who got the winning home run. He should have been angry, except that this man radiates happiness. Somehow Will knows that the stranger would have been just as happy losing and he wondered why.

"It's my birthday!" The sudden exclamation sounds like an answer to his question and he stares at the blonde, wondering if he could read minds. Or maybe he's just really happy about his birthday... Will likes birthdays a lot too.

"Happy birthday." He says, a little hesitantly, still clutching his mitt against his chest. This apparently puzzles the cheerful man, who tilts his head a little to look down at the boy.

"That's a nice mitt, but I think you're still missing something." The stranger gives a very serious expression, tapping one finger against the corner of his jaw. His eyes light up, and he reaches into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a scuffed baseball. "I got the home run with this," He confides, as he tucks it into Will's hand.

The boy stares at it, then back up at the man. "But... don't you want it?"

"I've already got everything I want today," He makes a grand gesture with one hand – a move so dramatic that Will can't help but giggle. "My name's Al, by the way."

"William." He replies, still laughing a little.

"Pleased to meetcha, Will." Al stretches lazily, looking up at the sky overhead which is only just beginning to grow dark. His smile is still happy, but less goofy now. "Looking forward to the fireworks?"

He can't help it, he tenses even at the mention, and he feels a little bad when Al looks at him with worried eyes. Quietly he gives his head a little shake. "Don't like 'em," He mutters, knowing he sounds sullen and not caring. "They're stupid."

"They are not..." Al looks offended at the very idea.

"They are too. They're loud and they're stupid and today is stupid." Will burst out, only remembering what other day it was today once the words had already been said. Al's head is turned a little away and William can see mostly his profile, but it doesn't take a genius to realize that he hurt Al's feelings. "Sorry," He mutters, only half meaning it, because fireworks were still stupid.

"Do you know what today means?" Al asks, after sitting there silent for a long time.

'Scary fireworks,' Will thinks, but what he says is, "Your birthday."

"It's America's birthday." And Will blinks at this, because he never thought of a country having a birthday. His silence is an invitation to Al, and the blonde man starts to talk about things that don't make a lot of sense. He talks about liberty, which is like not being in a cage, and he talks about truth which Will already knows means not telling lies. And while William may not understand these things, the way Al says them, he finds himself becoming enthusiastic about them. Al believes in these things that he says America's birthday mean.

It isn't until later, when he's sitting beside Al, the two of them both eating ice cream as Will tries not to shiver at the first firework, that something else finally becomes clear. The fireworks are brilliant white against the dark blue of the sky, and as he looks up, he can see the flag that flies every day above the field. The stars on the flag are like a firework...

The flag is America, he thinks. And America is liberty and truth and all the things that Al was talking about. Good things... He never thought about what it meant before, to be in America. It's the first time he feels pride in his country.

Later, when he's watching the star-bursts blossoming overhead, he realizes that he's forgotten to be afraid of the fireworks. 'Of course,' he thinks, and his thoughts remind him a little of Al, 'they're not so bad.' He turns to tell Al about his realization, to celebrate his newfound lack of fear, but when he looks, Al is already gone. Will sits there for a moment, wondering what he should do now. He's never been able to stay out this late before...

Will settles back into his seat, eyes flickering to the night sky overhead, lips curling in a smile. He decides that maybe he does like the Fourth of July now. It is America's birthday, after all.

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~ 02 - Played on a Solo Saxophone ~

Ice cubes clink against the side of his glass as he swirls the liquid, staring down at it. It doesn't provide him with any answers. It won't give him absolution. William has never killed someone before, and the face of that Vietnamese boy lurks behind his eyelids and refuses to give him rest. He can't help but wonder if it would bother him so much if he only knew the reason they were here. Some of the troops are celebrating a victory tonight but Will can't. He just doesn't see how this war benefits his country.

It isn't until he hears the scrape of a chair being moved across from him that he looks up. The blonde man who slides into the seat across from him is only vaguely familiar. He's not a friend, which means his presence is intolerable. Will just wants to drown himself in peace, and the man has a youthful, boisterous air that promises that 'peace' is probably the last thing on his mind. "Mind if I sit?"

He doesn't have time to say no before the youth is already draped across the chair, his posture shoddy for a soldier. Groaning inwardly, he wonders how many more glasses he'll have to down before it becomes tolerable to stare across the table at this idiot's smile. "Do whatever you want - " He mutters, knowing he sounds sullen and not caring. It takes a glance at the man's uniform before he has any clue how to address him. "-Private." He leaves out the name, not knowing it, and he hopes this omission goes unnoticed.

"Jones."

Apparently not.

"You seem unhappy," Private Jones says, and William feels prickles of anger starting to go through him. He wants to backhand the snotty little bastard. Of course he's not happy. "It's this war... you don't believe in it." Will bristled at the implications of those words, they made him sound somehow disloyal because he didn't support the war wholeheartedly. It sounded like an accusation.

"With all due respect, Private, I don't think what I believe is any of your concern." And lower, under his breath, "And you wouldn't understand, anyway."

"But I do get it," Jones is saying, so earnest that Will wants to either laugh in his face or slug him. He can't decide which, so he does neither. "You love your country. " The fool doesn't know what he's talking about. What he feels is not lip service. He's about to say so, but Jones doesn't give him the chance. "It's the most important thing to you – from the moment you wake in the morning, until you go to bed at night, it surrounds you. You don't want to worship it, but it's the closest thing to the love you feel. The flag, the concept... they define you. Liberty and Justice aren't words, they're vows. You're married to your country, Will. You always will be. It's your only love..." He pauses, takes a breath, "And you just don't see how shooting children is showing your devotion to America."

William looks across the table, feeling his mouth go dry as he meets the bright blue of the soldier's gaze. He's got it... he's given voice to everything that Will has ever held dear in his heart. How can an idiot read him like an open book? Everything that he's ever thought about America has just been given voice. He would never have dared to say those things aloud, not to anyone. And Jones... Jones isn't laughing. There's no ridicule in his gaze, only a soft pride – like he takes some small satisfaction from this knowledge.

William has never met anyone like this before... he has no idea how to react to this odd young man. So he does the only thing left in his mind. He leans over the table and kisses him, the alcohol singing in his blood.

'Don't ask, don't tell' has nothing to do with it, he thinks later, as the sweat cools on his skin. His fingers stroke through Private Jones' blonde hair, and he's aware that he's not attracted to men. It's just that Jones understands - he's the first person William has ever met who understands.

"I love my country," he mumbles to the younger man, somehow not surprised to see the bright smile on Jones' face in response to his words. There's a deep joy in the vivid blue of those eyes and Will thinks of the flag as the other soldier stretches out beneath him. Every scar his fingers find on the tanned skin brings to mind a thought about his country, about what makes his country so great. The good and the bad mesh until there is no distinction between them. Will presses his lips against that bared throat and loses himself. He falls in love with America over and over again that night, with Jones murmuring in his ear.

Despite the Private's words, despite the platitudes that he's sure everyone in the young man's position must hand out liberally, he isn't expecting what he sees as Jones puts himself back in order. Every motion, every flex of muscle beneath his taut skin, tells a different story than the one he'd read the previous night. What he'd thought cockiness was now simply an unwavering confidence, held up by the many marks on Jones' body. Every imperfection was a testament to the danger of living free. Private Jones will never belong to William, he knows this. He doesn't feel any sort of ache as he admits to himself that he's fine with that. No matter what happens, he still has America.

"Do you regret it?" He asks, not sure any longer what he's referring to. The blonde pauses, framed in the doorway. He turns his head just enough that William can see his unrepentant grin and then he's out the door and gone.

William sits there for a long time afterwards, with the sheets wrapped around his middle, wondering if he'd actually seen Jones' lips moving in silent words in the moment before he disappeared.

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~ 03 - Give Me Something to Believe In ~

"I can't believe they'd do this to me!" William rages at the woman behind the desk. The cool look on her face is worse than anger would have been. She doesn't dislike him, she simply doesn't care. He's a name on a list, nothing more. They've forgotten about him.

It's the first time he hates his country.

His shoulder aches as he makes his way back out to the street, trying not to hobble because goddamnit, he still has some dignity. The pin in his knee is molten - a pain that can only be quelled by the painkillers they deny him. Months he'd spent with the doctors forcing the damned things down his throat and now he can't do without them. His body throbs with each breath and the people he passes stare at him and move to the other side of the sidewalk.

He wants to laugh. He wants to grab them and shake them. These are people who have not seen the things he's seen. They're comfortable in their lives. They don't have the nightmares that linger behind William's eyelids, waiting for sleep to make him vulnerable.

They will never understand what he's done for them. They can't.

He hates them. He hates their smugness, the way they're set in their superiority. They take freedom for granted because they've never spilled their own blood for it. America is these people now. And William is becoming a relic already - aged by experience and neglect.

He curses as he stumbles over a spot where the sidewalk has buckled enough to leave a deep crack, his voice falling silent as he feels a strong hand against his arm, steadying him. He looks up into a pair of blue eyes and the world does a flip-flop around him. There's something eerily familiar about that face - it brings him blurry memories of the sticky heat of Saigon. But the man in his past is dead and this fresh-faced youngster has probably never set foot on a foreign shore.

William straightens up, ignoring his body's protests as he looks at his rescuer, his gaze as forbidding as he can manage. The man is dressed in a neat suit but his wheat blonde hair is messy and his stance is casual. "Are you okay?" The concern in his voice sounds genuine and William has the sudden urge to spill out everything, all of his worries, all of his pain. The man is a stranger though, and doing anything of the kind would make him seem even more like a raving lunatic.

"I'm fine!" He snaps instead, trying to keep the note of betrayal out of his voice. William doesn't want pity from this man. Even with his bad shoulder and the metal pins in his knee, he's still a soldier, and he doesn't want to be looked down upon by anyone, much less this man with his earnest eyes.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy to get rid of the 'helpful' fool. William does manage to take a bit of grim satisfaction from the man's efforts to assist him up the stairs in his apartment building. Will finds that making himself into dead weight is both easy and wonderful for discouraging would-be assistants. After fourteen flights of stairs, he begins to feel a stab of guilt for not telling the determined man that his building had an elevator. Still, despite the long climb, the blonde is surprisingly not winded. He's chipper and upbeat, everything that would normally have gotten on Will's nerves, and he invites himself in for coffee.

When there isn't any coffee, the man settles for pop. There's an awkward silence, where Will tries to think about the best way to kick someone out of his apartment without seeming like a total ass. Unfortunately, nothing immediately comes to mind. Will is about to go for the more direct route, turning to throw every verbal dagger he has at the man, but he's drawn up short at the look on the stranger's face. It's not pity.

William isn't sure he understands the deep sorrow he can see reflected in those blue eyes, but it saps his anger and leaves him sitting there feeling vulnerable. "I'm sorry," the man says, and he believes it. How can he not?

His chest feels like it will burst and he doesn't try to stop it. He pours himself out to this stranger, trusting that he will listen and not mock. All of his pain, his helplessness, his rage – they come spewing out of him, almost obscene when brought to light. He hates what his country has made him. He hates what his country has become. And once he's said it, he knows that it's only half true, because there are still people in America like this man – the blonde haired stranger sitting on his couch and listening to all of his woes and sorrows. Will already senses that the man won't ask anything in return for his time, and he doesn't.

He slips a card into William's hand as he finally gets up to leave. "If you have any more trouble with your medical matters," he says, his voice serious, "Just give them this card." Will frowns down at the neat text. A. F. Jones, it reads, and he wonders why it sounds familiar. It tickles at his memory invitingly, but he can glean nothing from it. When he looks up to thank the man – even if he does think it's a worthless piece of paper – Mr. A. F. Jones is already gone.

The next day, he thinks, 'what the hell?' and takes the card with him. They give him an appointment with a doctor that very day.

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~ 04 - Teach Them All to Sing Along ~

"I don't need your help, Alfred. The day I can't stand to salute the flag is the day I lay down in the street and die." He pushes the man's hand away as he struggles out of his chair. Beside him, the younger man is radiating concern, but William ignores it. He draws himself up, back straight, and stiffly salutes the Stars and Stripes. His chest burns, all the muscles in his body burn. He can feel the hollow in his middle where he's being eaten up alive, his insides turning on themselves with a cruel ruthlessness, but none of that matters as he stands in the moment, surrounded by the glory of the nation he lives in.

When it passes, he falls back into his chair, bathed in a sheen of sweat. He refuses to let Alfred take him home though... the two of them spend the rest of the day at the wall, where William runs his fingers over the names, remembering the people they belong to. They are cracked and blurred like old photographs, slipping through his hands with each moment that passes. He wants to hold onto them as long as he can.

He's dying. He's dying and he has to hold on to their faces because doesn't want to die alone.

Alfred has been remarkably patient with him. Maybe he also realizes that William is dying. It still surprises Will that there is someone who's willing to spend time with a cranky, cancer-ridden old bastard like himself, but the young man has never complained about it before.

"Why are you here, Alfred?" He asks, and the question is entirely rhetorical. He isn't sure he'd want the answer anyway – finding out that he was merely an obligation would have ruined whatever enjoyment Will can glean from their time spent together.

As soon as the words pass through his lips he wants to snatch them back. But Alfred is looking at him and there is a seriousness in his blue eyes that makes the gaudy American Flag t-shirt that the young man is wearing seem almost noble. He's struggling with something, William can tell, but he can't be sure what.

"I'll tell you, Will... I owe you that much." He says at last, the words coming out as a sigh. Al has come to some difficult decision, something of import, and Will is suddenly afraid of what he might say. But Alfred wants to go back to the apartment first and the ride back is agony. Silent agony.

When they're settled on the ratty couch, Alfred starts to tell him a story, and it's nothing like what he expected or feared. Will can only stare at the blonde in complete confusion, wondering what this has to do with Al hanging out with a washed up veteran with bad knees.

Still, he listens to Alfred talk, and he's surprised at how a man so young can ramble on as much as the men Will's age do. Is he a history teacher? He's never asked Alfred what he does, but he dismisses the possibility when he thinks about how damn young Al is. A history student, maybe.

He finds it quaint the way Alfred talks about the events of the past: like they're a personal thing. Like he's been there. William thinks Alfred would make a good storyteller but really, why is he bothering? William knows American history - he went to school. He doesn't need it to be the last thing that he hears before he dies. Halfway through the Civil War he can read a melancholy in the blonde and he begins to realize that Alfred believes in what he's saying. William is going to spend his last hours with a lunatic, and the only reason he doesn't tell Al to leave is because solitude is worse.

World War I flies by and William is barely listening. World War II passes in ignominy as well. It isn't until Alfred talks about Vietnam that William feels a shudder go through him. He doesn't just hear it, he finds himself living it again - the terror of it, the way he felt when he first pulled the trigger and realized he was shooting a boy half his age. And then, vividly, he remembers a hot night in Saigon... blonde hair and sun-kissed skin.

A hand steadying him as he struggles up the stairs to his lonely apartment and a soft litany of apologies that he doesn't quite understand...

Sitting side by side on the bleachers and eating ice cream as the bottle rockets light up the night sky...

The memories are no longer tattered black and white photos - they burst into his mind as clearly as the fireworks from his childhood. The same face litters his most precious memories, scattered across the years of his life. William wonders how he could not have noticed it before when it's so clear to him now.

Al... Private Jones... Mr. A. F. Jones... Alfred...

The United States of America.

And this... this man who was the nation, more than a mere piece of land with a name, is looking at him, concern gleaming in his blue eyes. William loves those eyes.

He's always known he loved his country... he'd just never thought it could be literal.

A fist is squeezing at his chest, making it difficult for him to breathe and immediately he feels Alfred's – America's – hands on his shoulders. The look on the blonde's face is all the absolution that William could ever want. All his life he's wanted to feel the love of his country, for it to reflect the depth of his own emotion. He's never found it in accolades, in accomplishment or fame... all of the things he's measured America's love in. To know now that he's had that love all along...

His fears are seeping away, all the dark ugly worries he's been keeping all of his life are draining out of him and leaving him clear. It's liberating. Whatever the rest of the world thinks of him, he will always have America.

America will never forget him.

William is falling away from himself – being dragged not into the darkness he expects, but into a brilliant light. He can see Alfred's face, beloved still, after all this time. His hand reaches out, his twisted, weakened fingers twining with America's. He can feel the strength, the vitality of the nation against his palm. "Fucking bastard," He laughs at the expression on Al's face, "Fucking magnificent bastard, good ol' US of A." A deep contentment settled over him. "I love you."

"I know." Alfred's voice comes to him from far away and Will feels the brush of lips against his cool forehead in a silent benediction.

'Do you regret it?' He thinks back to that morning in Saigon, and he knows now what Alfred's answer had been.

"It was worth every minute, Old Man," William rasps, his breath rattling in his chest. The light surrounds him, permeates him, and he gives himself in to it – light and luminous and with no regrets.

He's free...

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-Fin-

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Each chapter is named after the lyrics of a song. They are (in order):

1: "The Riddle" by Five For Fighting

2: "Last Night of the World" from the musical, Miss Saigon

3: "Something to Believe In" by Poison

4: "If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback


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